For Freshmen. By Freshmen.

TRENDING

4 shares

Lately, the issue of what is and is not protected under the First Amendment as free speech has come into the spotlight. With NFL players kneeling at the national anthem and UC Berkeley students protesting and a general clash between ideologies, freedom of speech has increasingly become the debate topic of choice. As the nation continues to be divided politically and socially, the limitations of what constitutes this long-idealized concept of free speech require definition.

In giving this speech, Attorney General Sessions just reiterated the points that have been used by everyone wanting an excuse to say something offensive: “It’s a free country, I can say what I want.” Yes, we do in fact live in a free country, that much is correct. But, when someone uses these freedoms to express their hate, and attempt to infringe on the freedom of others, that is when the line should be drawn.

The argument that the students at Berkeley were infringing on First Amendment rights would have been valid if those students were simply preventing a Republican from giving a speech because of the animal on his pin. However, the protestors were acting against an event set up by Milo Yiannopoulos, a known racist, xenophobe, transphobe, misogynist and alt-right supporter. If this event had occurred, it would have not only effectively promoted those values, but also the man that said them. When preventing someone from speaking means preventing them from taking the right to be heard from others, and preventing the promotion of such toxic ideals that would encourage taking these rights, it justifies the actions taken. These actions do not constitute an infringement of the constitution, but, if anything, a defense of its core values of equality.

So, the event Sessions criticizes in his speech was not really a breach in First Amendment rights. Even beyond this, he broadly missed the mark in his creative label of the state of college campuses. Colleges are not all about “trigger-warnings” and “safe spaces” as he so heavily implies. Students don’t spend every waking hour in therapy sessions, labelling every other word as offensive. We use the resources when we need it, and it is something that should be encouraged instead of discouraged, but for most of us it is not a crucial part of our lives. We know how to listen to people talking about something we disagree with, because we’ve grown up dealing with it. The difference now is that we are given an avenue to say something, to act according to our own beliefs, even if it means contradicting those people we once would have had to back down from.

That is the real condition of college campuses, and why politicians like Jeff Sessions look down on us and say that college is changing for the worst. The college environment is still a haven for political discourse, the only change is that now this environment is filled with a majority of liberal students with the drive and ability to act on their beliefs. Calling all these dissenting students weak and sheltered by the system is easier than acknowledging our viewpoints as valid, because that would mean giving some credence to the idea that maybe what he and the rest of the administration are doing may not be what is actually best for the country.

Sessions invalidates and even criminalizes opposing opinions in this speech just like the president has been doing during and before his presidency, frequently firing or advocating the removal of any who remotely oppose him. At this point, denial is the only salvation for an administration balancing on a knife’s edge. And Jeff Sessions is doing his part to keep up the charade and cut down the opposition, be it a football player or a college activist.

Fresh U is an online publication for freshmen, by freshmen. We’re focused on content meaningful to freshmen, something overlooked by general college websites or school newspapers. This isn’t just an online destination for freshmen - Fresh U gives freshmen the opportunity to become published writers and to be involved in the process of running their own publication.